Yearly Archive: 2011

Christmas Eve 2011

My dad was born in Texas on Christmas Eve 1946. He was a child with no privilege, a post-war baby, the son of a decorated Navy man, the son of a boxer who would...

John H. Willis (1946-2011)

For those who knew my dad or our family, this will be published in our local paper Tuesday morning. I’m posting it here for family and friends around the country who may not be...

He smelled the flowers

A few years ago, I looked down a sidewalk at my local zoo to see my father leaning over to smell the blossoms in front of him. He was alone and not affecting any...

On getting naked

I could not have been more naked. Six months ago, I stood behind an open car door. It was the only thing blocking my man-parts from an entire grass-field-turned-parking-lot full of people on a...

My blood runs cold…

The boy had just finished his homework in the playroom of our house. We were alone when he broke into song…a song a seven-year-old boy probably shouldn’t be singing. After I heard it, I...

Halloween story 2011

If you have been a reader of Rapid Eye Reality for a while, you know that once a year I release a story that doesn’t really fit in these pages. It’s my Halloween gift...

Saturday Night Lights

The backfield tackle was the kind in which the quarterback is hit, hit again, and finally collapses under the weight of blockers, tacklers, and the inevitability of yet another sack. Less than two minutes...

To the victims of 9/11: I’m sorry

I honor the memory of the heroes and innocents who died ten years ago on September 11, 2001. I honor their bravery, their sacrifice, and their families and friends. Whether by chance or by...

Notes on fear

The note read, “If I die.” Nothing else. There was no last will and testament. There were no instructions. There was only a flower blossom picked from somewhere else. I was soaked with sweat...

Promises

There is nothing uplifting about a downmarket Las Vegas hotel. It’s simple living, hours in a stiff bed comforted by a flickering laptop screen, whatever junk food I could liberate from the giftshop downstairs,...

The Last Poker Game

This story originally appeared at Up For Poker in January 2007. I’ve been thinking about that night a lot recently. What I learned more than four years ago seems more relevant with every passing...

Alarm

The roundest person in the entire gym was the firefighter who came to save our lives this morning. He was 350 pounds if he was an ounce. The sweaty struggle it must have been...